Just finished the book "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival,
Resilience, and Redemption" by Laura Hillenbrand which tells the story of
American Louie Zamperini, a bombardier in the Pacific theatre during WWII.
Prior to enlisting he competed in the Berlin Olympics in 1936, noting the pride
with which Germany wished to show the world their superiority. He recounted how
he stayed on in Berlin for an additional week after the Games ended and noted
how all over the city "Juden Verboten" signs, which had been taken down
for the Games, went right back up. Very interesting correlation to what is
happening today.

I'm sure the First Presidency & Quorum of the 12 are
watching pretty closely and following the guidance of the Spirit. The mission
presidents & regional reps who live in the area can give pretty 'here
& now' info. I trust the leadership completely.

I have a son in the area on his mission and I feel that during times of crisis
opportunities open up to the missionaries as people start to search their souls.
While I pray for his safety I want him to remain and be a beacon of hope as
missionaries tend to be to those whom they serve.

I think that they should be evacuated from Russia as a precautionary measure.
Just to be safe. What's upsetting to me about this situation is that the
U.S government has dealt with this scenario and has gameplanned against this
move from Russia. On an even more frustrating note I read a book in December
called Command Authority. This was Tom clancy's last book before he
passed. This scenario was explained in finite detail in that book. How it
would happen ( social unrest, Russia saying theyre protecting there interests).
They knew this was a situation that was going to happen soon, and they
completely dropped the ball. The difference between the book and reality is
that in the book the U.S had a strong President who took action and eventually
Russia backed down. Wish that were the case currently in reality. Tom Clancy
gets his information from sources within the government or those that formerly
worked for the goverment, so you know they knew this would happen.

This is an error by Putin. He should be clamoring for friendship with the US
and the EU and the Ukraine. He had bigger fish to fry: the Muslims to the south
and China. In the meantime Obama guts our military.

Peace corps have already told their people to leave. The US travel site has said
non essential people must go and ordered to leave the families of personnel. And
issued a travel warning. I hate to say this but a 19 year old who is such a
child they live according rules such as what time to be indoors, what to read,
how often to use the internet, and whether they need to clean their plate or not
has no business being in a country the US can't get them out of as things
head south. And they better have in hand their own passports, so they can use
their own agency to leave. Senior missionaries can do what they wish. More than
half a million Ukrainians have poured into Russia. I assume we will see word
soon they are all out. For the missionaries who are US citizens their
grovernment ought to be the leadership that matters.

You have to stop diminishing the President. I am
republican too, and agree that he isn't the best for our country. However,
it is not his weakness that would stop us from sending troops over there. It
is: 1)congress needs to approve of war, and while we might not enter war,
congress can still have some say in what happens. 2) If anything is done, the UN
would need to make a decision on it first, otherwise things could just get more
ugly.

Does anyone remember Obama chiding Romney during the debates saying the 1980s
were calling and wanted their Russia strategy back? How foolish does that look
now? And how foolish do Obama supporters look now? Unfortunately, the whole
world will pay the price for this folly.

Russia is a VERY complicated situation right now, as is Ukraine. Half of
Ukraine doesn't even speak Ukranian and were as recently as 1950 part of
the Russian SSR. Khrushchev gave Crimea to the Ukraine in 1954.

That
said, Russia is looking to gain the territory that it lost in the late 80s.
Putin definitely feels emboldened in this quest, and like his predecessor Peter
the Great, started out with an eye towards Europe and then once he got older he
turned more autocratic.